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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
UPDATE: For anyone who entered data for any of the following players from the start of the poll 2 days ago until now (Aug 20, Wed, 2pm), please re-enter your data for those players only. I found a small bug which I quickly repaired. All other data has been properly recorded and stored. I apologize for this issue. I should have done a better job at quality control. (This only affected the first record of 11 teams.)
NYA Cano, Robinson
NYN Wright, David
OAK Crosby, Bobby
PHI Utley, Chase
PIT McLouth, Nate
SDN Gonzalez, Adrian
SEA Suzuki, Ichiro
SFN Rowand, Aaron
SLN Glaus, Troy
TBA Iwamura, Akinori
TEX Kinsler, Ian
TOR Overbay, Lyle
***
It’s the 6th Annual Fans’ Scouting Report.
Every year, I get a jump in participation, from the first year where I had close to 500 ballots, to last year where it exceeded 2000 ballots. If you’ve enjoyed my blog, appreciated my work, or somehow wondered what you could do in return, this is it. All I ask from you is 5-10 minutes of your time, and we’ll call it even. And, if you have a blog, please, spread the word.
I am extremely grateful to all those who take a few minutes out of their lives to share their observations with the rest of the fans. Your contributions exceed whatever you think it may be worth. As we continue to build upon the past reports, this data now begins to take on historical value.
I know only of gushing reports about the fielding of Paul Blair. Mickey Stanley sounds like some cross between Darin Erstad and Endy Chavez. That is based on the writings of the generation that preceded me. In my generation, I can only attest to the fielding prowess of Gary Pettis. The new generation knows as little about Pettis, as I know of Blair and Stanley. When the next generation comes along, I want to be able to point them to the Fans Scouting Report as the contemporaneous view of the fielding talents of Ichiro and Rolen. And Manny and Dunn. We can breathe life into their fielding accomplishments.
Thank you for your invaluable time.
Tom
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Seems like a good idea for lower-level leagues:
The A-11 base sets use two quarterbacks lined up at least seven yards from the line of scrimmage. A center, bracketed by two tight ends, comprises the three-person offensive line. Six receivers are split wide. On a given play, only six men are eligible to receive a downfield pass. But because all players can become eligible by wearing jersey numbers 1-49 or 80-99, the defense is left to guess at who is going downfield on each snap.
“We’re doing futuristic football,” Humphries said. “We’re doing football where every play is innovative, and that’s why people find it fun to watch. It’s fun to play. Every player has the potential to be a part of almost every play.”
And a website too!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Incredibly, these are not bugs but design features. This happens to me all the time, whereby I hold the SHIFT key, think about something, and if I think too long, the CAPS lock turns on and stays on. Then, I have to remember how to turn it off (answer: hold both SHIFT keys to cancel). Anyway, here’s how to turn this feature off. That site has more stuff, which I will enjoy looking at.
If you are the Microsoft designer that actually created this function, or if you are the Microsoft Quality Control that actually let this go through, please speak up. Obviously, there must be a good reason that you did this.
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Comments • 2008/08/21
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Web Admin
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A very good and fairly light Josh Kalk read on the knuckleball. I’d say that of all the PITCHf/x articles I’ve read, this would be one that would feel perfectly at home in a mainstream press. I also like the links to the Banks articles. Just good all-round read.
Josh Hamilton, in a rush to get to the birth of his child, allegedly screamed in the face of an autograph seeker in the lobby of his hotel. The comments in that thread, and in those of BTF, are filled with posts of support, saying that the girl “asked for it” with her pestering attitude.
I would suspect that if the girl were to replay the incident, she’d have handled it better. And I would suspect if you were to ask Josh that he would have handled it more politely. In this case, both were wrong, and the combination doesn’t make it right, just worse. Of course, both can be forgiven, if they wanted to act as decent human beings, but something got the better of them.
I don’t really want to talk about this particular incident.
But, I want to put you in his shoes. What would you do? And let me change the parameters. Say that you were not being pestered by a lady with a child, but by an unruly mob of 3 to 5 guys. Say you do not have your teammates with you, but you are alone. But, you do have a very pressing once-in-a-lifetime engagement, your mind is a bit clouded, and you really want to get out of there as fast as possible. What do you do? Do you size up the situation, and sign the damn autograph, or do you stick to your principles, and live with the consequences? And, if you stick to your principles, do you (initially or eventually) take a best-defense-is-a-good-offense approach, or do you remain unfailingly polite throughout, crushing them with kindness?
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Comments • 2008/08/20
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Blogging
Hat tip Roel Torres:
There are 2,622 people in the U.S. with the last name Tiger. There are 396 people in the U.S. with the last name Tango.
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Comments • 2008/08/21
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Blogging
Monday, August 18, 2008
Stumbling on this cool article on the platoon advantage of same-handed shooters and goalies (RH shooters prefer to play against goalies who have a glove on the RH, meaning that the stick and glove are on opposite sides, just like a RH pitcher is on opposite side of a LH hitter), there was a comment about how a disproportionate number of Canadians are LHH in baseball. It certainly makes sense, since the number of LH shooters in hockey is disproportionately large, and a LH shooter in hockey will become mostly a LH hitter in baseball. Here’s more on the subject.
Poker bots are about to eliminate crime as a byproduct:
Unlike checkers, the key to poker is to predict whether other players are bluffing. On the Internet (without the possibility of visual cues), computers are probably better at predicting a rival’s hand from his or her past play. But computers are much better at confounding the expectations of their human opponents. Computers can play randomized strategies much better than we can. Our brains are so hardwired to see patterns, it’s devilishly hard for most of us to generate random behavior.
Indeed, take a minute and try to write down a random sequence of 200 heads or tails. If you actually flip a coin that many times, there’s a very large chance (98%) that there will be a run of at least 6 heads or 6 tails in a row. But very few people can bring themselves to produce such runs in trying to be random.
Well-written article:
We all know that the map of Alberta and the territory of Alberta are two different things. The map might show that a road is straight, but when you head out to that road, you actually find that it curves here and there, that the territory itself is different than the map. So the map is not the territory, and it never is, and it never can be. When it comes to hockey, the map is the statistics we use to try to describe the performance of a player. The territory is the player’s performance itself. The map and the territory are two different things here as well. For instance, the statistical map might say that Shawn Horcoff was +3 on the night, but really he had a terrible game. Horcoff had little to do with any of the three goals scored when he was on the ice, and on one goal against his team, after making a terrible play, he left the ice before the goal was scored, so the minus mark went to some other player, not him. When you hear then, that Horcoff played great because he was +3 and he faced strong opponents, and that’s all you know about the matter, it’s important to realize that number has great limitations in describing the performance.
There are easy ways to handle plus/minus in hockey, and that’s the With Or Without You (WOWY) method. 82games.com does that for basketball. While the above author is correct that plus/minus has its flaws (giving a plus to someone who doesn’t deserve it, etc), that doesn’t matter. You can take say Albert Pujols and Benjie Molina, and then, randomly give each player 200 PA of a mean of .340 OBP (that is, let a random number generator, with mean = .340, and 1 SD = .030, create a number, then multiply that by 200), and add that to his totals. Guess what? Pujols will still have a higher OBP than Molina. Once in a blue moon Molina might end up with a higher OBP than Pujols because he lucked into a .600 OBP in 200 PA while Pujols lucked into a .100 OBP in 200 PA. But, the underlying basis of OBP (and plus/minus) still holds. The signal is still there, but now you have more noise to sift through.
Anyway, enjoyable read.
The ever-resourceful Ubi tells us:
From 2002 to 2005 there were 257 games played by teams in contention against teams out of it*. The contending team won 170 of those games for a .661 winning %. The contending teams record before the trial period was .553 and the out of it teas winning % was .394. Now then if I did Log5 correctly we should expect the contending team to win 65.5% of the time so according to Log5 contending teams over a 4 year period won 2 more games then expected.
*: Contending teams were defined as teams that were within 5 games of the division lead or wild card provided that they were over .500. Also division leaders or wild card teams that had big leads were not counted as contending teams. The out of it teams were the bottom dwelling teams of each league. The winnning percentages provided were based on standings at the end of play on Aug 31.
So, the idea that the contenders have it better against non-contenders because non-contenders are putting out “trial” lineups is almost certainly not true. Even if they are trial lineups, those trial lineups might have been the better option to begin with!
Derek Carty takes a look.
(Because of all the charts, I could only take a cursory look at the article. Gotta wait to print it and read it at lunch and away from prying office-eyes. Looks good though.)
Friday, August 15, 2008
Love this stuff about Papelbon, Holliday and the Sox coaching staff:
Read More
Marian Hossa is one of the best players in the NHL, a free agent, had a great post-season, went to the finals, and he seemed to have been offered some Ovechkin-like contract, some $92MM long-term deal. Instead he opted for a one-year $7.45MM deal:
“I asked what they were looking for,” Holland told Landsberg. “It was north of 7.5 (million). I told them I was uncomfortable (having Hossa make more than Lidstrom). “In the end, Marian Hossa told me to not bother calling Nik, one year at 7.45 - it was a done deal.”
Even his agent was surprised. “I have never been involved in a deal and seen a player get so excited to take $85 million less than he was offered elsewhere,” Winter told The Canadian Press. “It’s almost incomprehensible, even to an agent. But Marian is a special player.”
To put this in baseball perspective, you need to double all NHL salaries to get it into MLB terms. He effectively turned down a $185MM multi-year deal, for a 1 year $15MM deal to play for the best team in the league.
Adam Dunn is what WPA/LI was invented for. In 4500 PA, his wins added over an average hitter, given the base/out inning/score opportunities presented to him was +18 wins.
The most similar player to Adam Dunn in terms of OBP, SLG, and PA is JD Drew. In his career, Drew is +25 wins.
Three other players with less PA are: Teixeira (+12 situational wins), Bay (+14 wins), and Miguel Cabrera (+20 wins). If you add up their totals (+46) to Drew’s (+25), and take 30% (to align them to the same number of PA as Dunn), you get +21 wins.
I think there may be something to the fact that Dunn is not a good situational hitter (or that his skillset doesn’t lend itself to good situational hitting).
He’d definitely be a good case study.
Here is the comparison line, as of today:
+18 situational wins, .247 / .380 / .519 Dunn
+21 situational wins, .290 / .382 / .522 Dunn’s top 4 comps (Tex, JD, Miguel, Bay)… situational wins prorated to Dunn’s PA.
Tim Marchman gives us a good summary of what’s wrong with the MLB draft. Let’s think outside the box, and try to come up with something novel based on these constraints:
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Thursday, August 14, 2008
By , 12:29 PM
Tampa Bay is my new favorite team, if only because I bet some money on them to win the pennant and WS, at 75-1 and 150-1, respectively.
Losing Crawford and especially Longoria seem to be devastating to their chances, but remember, we have shown that adding or subtracting major talent at this point in the season is not generally going to make or break a team, on the average. Even acquiring or losing stars or superstars is only worth a win or so with less than 1/3 of a season remaining.
Let’s briefly look at how losing Crawford and Longoria, presumably for the rest of the season, impacts the Rays.
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Comments • 2008/08/16
UPDATE: This blog entry (not an article) has been linked from several places, and there are questions from non-LWTS followers about what the weights should be. One place to find them is the last line of this page. Had I intended to write this as an article, I would have been more complete in my description. I apologize to those who stumbled along here for the first time. Basically, anyone coming to this blog is walking into the middle of a conversation. Feel free to interrupt and ask a question.
***
Baseball Prospectus undervalues walks. By how much? As much as OPS. Don’t believe me? Let me walk you through the steps:
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Stat Corner is a new site by friends of The Book Matthew Carruth and Graham MacAree. It looks like they are focusing on presenting stats you can’t find elsewhere, so that’s good.
Since they are just starting out, and seem to be willing to try new things, I think they’ll be open to suggestions. Here are mine after first use:
1. The team page should list their special stats for 2008, and make their names hyperlinked. Right now, just their names are hyperlinked. No reason for me to go one player at a time on the same team.
2. The team info page should also be present under a league page, so we can see those numbers in context. Things should flow hierarchically (league, team, player), with information on each page.
3. Make the headings clickable or hoverable, so we can see what they mean.
4. On the Pitch data page, each year should be clickable to have further drill down. In fact, Matthew at THT had presented such stats in an article. It’s a great presentation, and I’d hope to see it here some day.
That’s all for now. Good luck guys!
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Comments • 2008/08/14
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Sabermetrics
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Data
Victor looks at Bayes’ Theorem for prospect valuation.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Friends of The Book Pete Palmer and Sean Forman have produced a baseball guide book, in hardcopy (available at lulu.com) and color PDF download. Looks very nice from the sample pages.
from Amazon
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